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Stef

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Quite - government officials/civil servants never get any stick.
I must have imagined TB and his police/DVLA/civil service rants

Yes-I've noticed that too. My reaction to others with the same penchant in the past is to ask for CONSTRUCTIVE ways to improve the situation. I cant recall having any replies that made any sense. It is not a perfect world and if you want the benifits that a modern society can give you, it must be allowed that paying for it is one of the rules. The government departments responsible for delivering service and collecting taxes will come under the old trueism 'you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time' Anything else is pie in the sky............

Yes-I've noticed that too. My reaction to others with the same penchant in the past is to ask for CONSTRUCTIVE ways to improve the situation. I cant recall having any replies that made any sense. It is not a perfect world and if you want the benifits that a modern society can give you, it must be allowed that paying for it is one of the rules. The government departments responsible for delivering service and collecting taxes will come under the old trueism 'you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time' Anything else is pie in the sky............

There are loads of constructive ways of improving the situation with the most effective being privatisation of the work involved. But that really isn't the issue. As we move from a society where people made things to a society where people either shuffle paper for private industry or work for the state shuffling paper, we lose touch with the realities of runniNg an organisation making things. it was one of the bigger changes in my working life moving froma series of jobs where all the people I dealt with we're other mainly university educated middle class professionals to having to manage large numbers of badly educated often unmotivated blue collar workers making widgets. it was an introduction to the real world or what had been the real world until we shut down much of our manufacturing. it was going from a world where people worked with you to achieve a result to a world where a proportion couldn't care at all and some deliberately obstructed and sabotaged.

There are loads of constructive ways of improving the situation with the most effective being privatisation of the work involved. But that really isn't the issue. As we move from a society where people made things to a society where people either shuffle paper for private industry or work for the state shuffling paper, we lose touch with the realities of runniNg an organisation making things. it was one of the bigger changes in my working life moving froma series of jobs where all the people I dealt with we're other mainly university educated middle class professionals to having to manage large numbers of badly educated often unmotivated blue collar workers making widgets. it was an introduction to the real world or what had been the real world until we shut down much of our manufacturing. it was going from a world where people worked with you to achieve a result to a world where a proportion couldn't care at all and some deliberately obstructed and sabotaged.

My reply was aimed at specific critisism of specific agencies. I appreciate your reply but privatisation will not happen in the areas under discussion.

I really didn't want to have to resort to making a public post about this, but circumstances dictate that I need to provide Crusader with as much encouragement as I can muster. Here are the facts:

I asked for a quote for a new genoa from Crusader. I received the quote in December 2011 with options on cut and material. I then went to LIBS on the Thursday evening (12th January 2012) to discuss the three options with Andy and Paul. Having made my decision, I put down a deposit for £200 as part payment for a £3,700 Hydranet sail (and this is the important bit) on the condition that it was delivered in time for a planned trip on 2nd May. They agreed that it would be, having shaken hands on the deal.

On the 26th of March, having heard nothing, I contacted them to remind them of the 2nd May date and that the order had been made, and taken, on the basis of meeting that delivery date. I stated that I thought they were cutting it fine but in their reply of 2nd April they assured me that the boat would be measured 'in 2-3 weeks' and there would be no problem meeting the order. I pointed out that in the worst case this would leave them with very little time to make the sail and deliver it to my house. They completed measurements on 17th April.

I phoned them on 23rd April for an update and eventually paid for the sail in full on Wednesday 25th on the basis that it would be delivered to my house on Friday 27th. My wife cancelled an optician's appointment to wait in for the courier, but nothing appeared.

I had a series of phone calls with them on Saturday 28th (initiated by me, not them) and after much vagueness they confirmed that the sail was not finished, and that it had therefore not left the building... and that they probably should have told me, given that we'd confirmed a delivery date.

I have now been given a 'cast iron guarantee' that the sail will be delivered to me before close of play on Tuesday 1st so my trip is not ruined, but with no plan from Crusader as to how they are to achieve this. I have been told that I will get an update today, Monday 30th, but with so much vagueness to date, and with one failed delivery, I'm not confident. I'm in Scotland, which adds to my concerns about their ability to deliver on time.

I ordered from them on the basis that every thread on here about Crusader is glowing with praise, so I thought a little 'public encouragement' might help.

I have posted only facts. I will also post when the sail turns up, or if indeed it doesn't within the timescales we agreed.

This post will come up in google from now on. May I suggest that you edit your first post to include the outcome?

I can see why you would want to use the forum like this and it appears that the end result was what you were hoping for, so in all fairness to the company, placing the whole story on the first post would enable any pottential customer who sees the thread to find out the ending without having to wade through all the posts.

So, you gave them some money, heard nothing for two months, had to chase them, waited for a no show, waited again for a late message and finally got something that because of the weather you aren't going to be able to check out properly before your trip.

.......and the first thing you did was thank them.

We Britishers are a strange bunch. Perhaps we get the service level we deserve?

Its all about lowering expectations, you talk yourself into not expecting it to happen and the dire implications etc, then when they pull it out of the bag after giving you unacceptably high stress levels for a week or so, you are wildly happy and sing there praises, because now your very low expectations have been exceeded (nows the time for one of those funny faces that i wont use) I must remember that for my business... i dont think so

This post will come up in google from now on. May I suggest that you edit your first post to include the outcome?

I can see why you would want to use the forum like this and it appears that the end result was what you were hoping for, so in all fairness to the company, placing the whole story on the first post would enable any pottential customer who sees the thread to find out the ending without having to wade through all the posts.

But the joke is many of the 'civil servants' that TB and his ilk rant about will actually be employed by private companies with govenment contracts to do the routine front-line work!

There arent two sorts of people - competent who work for private companies and incompetent working for the govt. Its the organisations and the rules that they operate under that are the problem not the people

There arent two sorts of people - competent who work for private companies and incompetent working for the govt. Its the organisations and the rules that they operate under that are the problem not the people